MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/. The Russian Student Rescue Corps, one of the largest youth volunteer societies in the country, has united volunteers across the country, willing to make the Russian Arctic cleanup. A TASS correspondent has joined the team. This is a story about how she worked in Tiksi jointly with the volunteers and experts of the Clean Arctic non-governmental organization.

"Here, in the team, they call me Hulk woman. That’s because I am very strong and stubborn, I try to work equally with the guys. Though they use dirty language at times, of course," smiled a long-haired and fragile girl, carrying a piece of rusty pipe.

She is Vika Torchenova. 21 years old. She has graduated from a college as a teacher of first years’ school students. Vika plans to continue education. Now that she has got some free time, Vika decided to volunteer the Student Rescue Corps in Vladikavkaz, where she lives. The mission has taken her 5,000 km away from home - to Yakutia’s Tiksi.

The region still suffers from the wildfires. Another force of nature in the region is water - Tiksi is an important sea port on the Northern Sea Route. The region is also known for tonnes of rusty metal, which have remained there from former industrial facilities, plants, and even from sunken ships. Vika’s focus is on metal - she is among the volunteers who have come to Tiksi to remove scrap metal from the Russian Arctic.

Nearly abandoned capital

Vika has come to Tiksi together with another six girls and boys. They are volunteers from across Russia. The flight was not easy: the only route to get to Tiksi is to make a connection in Yakutsk, from there - a few hours by a tiny Antonov plane, and then to drive an off-road from the airport to the settlement.

The young people did not look exhausted - as soon as they got to the settlement they immediately rushed to the sea. No, not to swim - to assess the work to be done.

Swimming, anyway, was out of question: though the sea along the coast is not covered with ice yet, the Laptev Sea is very cold. The coastline is a layer of black sharp stones. The view could have been scenic, but for the metal debris, pieces of pipes, packaging and even old boats.

Tiksi, the center of Yakutia’s Bulunsky District, in the 1970s - 1980s was the capital of the Soviet Arctic and till now it has been the sea gates of the Northern Sea Route. The port is half alive, half abandoned - it is full of outdated equipment, old containers and even ships.

Necessary special outfit

All the volunteers are skilled for the mission, they know safety rules, are skilled in first aid, know how to work in difficult conditions. They are experienced in hiking and in handling inconveniences.

They were given special denim outfit, water-proof boots, hats, warm vests, thermal underwear, and, surely, gloves - a few pairs right in the very beginning. An expert of the Clean Arctic project office supervises the work they do.

"Not because the volunteers are not working hard. Just the opposite - sometimes there’s no stopping them, we can hardly make them take a lunch break," Clean Arctic’s leader of the expedition group Vladislav Finkov said laughing.

A few minutes later I saw what he meant. The volunteers were moving so quickly that taking a video or a picture was next to impossible. I asked them to stop for a second, but heard in response: "We are here to work, not to make videos."

Being next to them, it seemed impossible to remain aside and not to join them. I was not given any outfit, though did receive gloves and a request to collect the lightest waste. My lack of training was apparent: in just 30 minutes I could barely breathe, my arms and legs were aching.

The volunteers, at the same time, exchanged jokes and continued cleaning the coastline until Vladimir shouted out "lunch!" I seemed to be the only one who was happy to hear that word. The others begged for "another five minutes."

Geography teacher loves traveling

"Being a volunteer is a mission. No matter, how strongly I may be tied with a rope, I will anyway run to help other people," Roman Slutsky said in response to a question why he had chosen to travel so far away to clean waste.

Roman is not high, well-built, with a stylish haircut. Smile never leaves his face. He is a team’s leader. All other guys are always next to him, catching the jokes, or roaring with laughter, like, for example, when he said: "those who work badly will remain here until complete correction."

I managed to talk to him during a small break. Roman looks not older than 25, and I am surprised to learn he is 40, married with two daughters. He is a teacher of geography and loves traveling.

"Why kids respect me? Simply because I haven’t grown up, I am one of them. This is why they obey, and this is why they here carry those pipes together with me. If we, the grownups, sit on a couch expecting the youth to go working, nobody’ll go to the Arctic," Roman said.

Lada Khakhlayeva, who together with him had come from the Belgorod Region, agreed. She is 19, and she is the team’s ringleader. The girl is doing her best not to lack behind, and would not stop for a second. Next to her is Nastya Generalova from Omsk - she studies to become a psychologist, and wants to work at the emergency response unit. Vladislav Kotoman, also 19, finished the Army service in July and in August rushed for the Arctic. Sasha Korolev is 21, he is a student from Omsk - not sure about the future, but says being a volunteer is for good. Aslanbek Mazloyev, who is 27, has studied programming, but now works with volunteers at the Rescue Corps. When asked why joining the volunteer movement, each of them gives one response: I cannot imagine myself staying away from helping people.

Old buildings for new roads

Experts of the Clean Arctic non-governmental organization went to the expedition together with the volunteers. The Clean Arctic project’s authors are Captain of the 50 Let Pobedy nuclear-powered Arctic class icebreaker Dmitry Lobusov and Gennady Antokhin, Captain on FESCO’s ships from 1982 to 2012. In early June, Captain Lobuzov suggested organizing a "big Arctic cleanup," hoping the joint effort would clean the Arctic territories from accumulated scrap metal and fuel. The program, presented at the Public Chamber on July 5, has been widely supported, including by the president’s ecology envoy Sergey Ivanov, the nature watchdog Rosprirodnadzor, volunteer and public organizations, scientific community and by the Arctic regions’ governors.

"Look, Russia owns 40% of the Arctic, and the Arctic’s development, which began in the 1930s, has always depended on supplies of equipment for plants or shops. Equipment was getting outdated, though remained in the Arctic. This explains the big accumulated damage - in all the Arctic territories we can see huge amounts of scrap metal, abandoned buildings, various weird facilities, and ruins. The region must be cleaned: the buildings must be processed into crushed stone, such technologies are available, and the crushed material could be used in road construction; while the metal must be smelted," leader of the Clean Arctic project office Alexander Markov said.

He and his colleagues - ecology scientists and specialists in construction and demolishing, in waste processing - inspect the areas before volunteers are allowed there.

"Every waste requires specific approaches. For example, we must not even touch metal barrels containing chemicals - not to harm in any way. We have special expert groups, which examine areas, and we have special workers involved in heavy and hazardous works," he continued. "Volunteers work only where it’s safe."

In 2021, Clean Arctic teams have been to Taimyr, Norilsk, the Arkhangelsk Region, and Yamal. On the Taimyr Peninsula only, they have cleaned more than 200 cubic meters of construction waste and about 100 tonnes of metal.

"People on Taimyr could not believe it would be possible to remove the debris, which had remained there for more than 80 years," he said. "But when they saw results of our work, they wanted to join the effort, to become volunteers."

Everything begins from the North

On the first day, the team cleaned a few dozen meters of the coastline. Tiksi’s population is smaller than 5,000, and the Clean Arctic’s arrival was a special day for them. On August 25, the official start, practically every local resident joined the cleanup mission - the retirees, school students, teachers, doctors, officials. Everyone was invited to join a new team of volunteers, which will be organized in Tiksi shortly.

"Development of the Arctic zone is of great importance for the country. The volunteers from Vladikavkaz, Omsk and Belgorod now help to remove the construction waste near Tiksi’s sea port and coastline. Further on, we plan to open a local division of the Rescue Corps, where everyone will be invited to take courses in personal and public safety, to obtain new knowledge and skills so that in future they could help people in the region," the organization’s leader Evgeny Kozeyev said.

First five applications have been processed. "I am 21, I love the nature. All our locals have kept the territory clean, though only in their own yards, and have never cleaned the coastline. Doing it alone was not realistic. We, probably, just needed a push. The North is often said to be far away - but that depends on from where you look at it - from our side, everything begins here," Lubov Kiseleva, a local resident, told us.